And remember, when you are being tempted, do not say, “God is tempting me.” God is never tempted to do wrong, and he never tempts anyone else. Temptation comes from our own desires, which entice us and drag us away. These desires give birth to sinful actions. And when sin is allowed to grow, it gives birth to death. [James 1:13-15 (NLT)]
Super Ghost Orchid (by R.J. Wiley)
Once they start collecting orchids, many seemingly normal people become obsessed with them—something the Victorians called orchidelirium. In spite of the threat of federal and state prosecution, some collectors cannot resist the temptation to possess one of the rare orchids found at Corkscrew Swamp and other Florida parks. Because it’s located 50 feet up on a cypress tree, Corkscrew’s super ghost orchid seems safe from poachers but many of Florida’s exotic orchids are stolen from parks, preserves, and homes every year! This summer, a woman was arrested for stealing $4,000 worth of orchids from homes in a town not far from us. As much as I enjoy flowers, it would take far more than an exotic orchid to make me steal from a neighbor’s yard or trudge through the snake and alligator infested waters of a swamp. But, if not an orchid, what would entice me to do such a thing—to do what I clearly know is wrong?
I thought of the old joke in which a man in a bar asks an attractive woman if she’d have sex with him for a million dollars. After she accepts his offer, He then asks if she’d consider it for ten dollars. “What do you take me for?” she asks indignantly. “My dear,” the man replies, “We’ve already established what you are with your first answer. Now we’re just trying to negotiate the price!” What does it take to tempt any of us to step into sin?
At Corkscrew, the Audubon Society has built a boardwalk to keep visitors where they belong. While it helps protect the park’s flora and fauna, its true purpose is to protect the people from the dangers of the swamp. It is, however, a matter of choice as the whether or not a visitor stays on the trail (and not all of them do). In our daily lives, the Bible tells us how to behave and shows us the way we should go. God’s word isn’t there to keep us from enjoying ourselves—it’s there to keep us on the path of righteousness and protect us from sinking in the swamp of sin. But, just like the orchid hunters, we can choose to succumb to temptation, climb over the railings, and walk where we shouldn’t.
“What would you do for a Klondike bar?” was the question asked in the old commercials for the ice cream treat. Their ad campaign was re-launched last year when actress Anna Faris went undercover as a marketing director. She asked a group of expecting couples if any would sign over the naming rights to their baby for a lifetime supply of Klondike bars. For most of us, it would take more than the promise of a rare orchid or an endless supply of ice cream to succumb to Satan and step off God’s path. Satan, however, is no fool; he knows exactly what would tempt us each and every one of us. The question isn’t what we’d do for a rare flower or a frozen treat, but we better know our answer if we were asked what we’d be willing to do for things like wealth, happiness, beauty, fame, youth, health, security, love, or position.
Satan, like a fisher, baits his hook according to the appetite of the fish. [Thomas Adams]
With the back-to-back hurricanes that tore through Louisiana, two others that devastated Nicaragua and Honduras, and the consecutive typhoons that flooded the Philippines, a great many people must be asking, “Why us, Lord?” In spite of the meteorological explanations for the paths taken by those storms, there is something discomforting about the seeming randomness of such destruction. I can’t help but wonder, “Why them and not us?” In a universe of retribution and reward, we’d have a sense of being able to control our destiny; only bad things would happen to bad people and only good things to the good ones. If we did all the right things, life would go smoothly and, if we didn’t, we’d just be getting what we deserved! That, however, is not the way of the world and back-to-back hurricanes along with cancer, ALS, hit-and-run-drivers, stray bullets, and tornadoes hit both the deserving and undeserving.
The story is told of four blind men who, while walking together, collided with an elephant. The one who bumped into the elephant’s trunk concluded they’d run into a giant hose. The second man, feeling the elephant’s huge ear, disagreed and said it was an enormous fan. As he pulled on the tail, the third man assumed that it was a heavy rope. The fourth blind man, feeling the thick leg, pronounced them all to be wrong and declared they’d encountered a tree. Because none of them felt the entire animal, all of them were incorrect.
Do you think you can explain the mystery of God? Do you think you can diagram God Almighty? God is far higher than you can imagine, far deeper than you can comprehend, Stretching farther than earth’s horizons, far wider than the endless ocean. [Job 11:7-9 (MSG)]
Proverbs 31 is said to have been written by King Lemuel. We only know that Lemuel was “the king of Massa,” possibly an Arab king, his name means “devoted to God,” and his words were written somewhere between the tenth and sixth centuries BC. Attributing his words to counsel from his mother, the first nine verses sound like the sort of thing a queen-mother would tell son about government and the dangers of wine and bad women. Verses 10 through 31, however, are an acrostic poem outlining the qualities of the ideal wife.
Devotions of the Heart 